Logan Square Redesign Gets First Green Light from City

The city has approved a Request for Qualifications for a major redesign around Logan Square's monument. View Full Caption

BIP

LOGAN SQUARE — A plan to reshape the neighborhood's namesake park and one of its major throughways has taken another step closer to becoming a reality.

The Chicago Department of Transportation has issued a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) to study plans outlined in the Bicentennial Improvement Project, which would redesign Logan Square's iconic centennial monument area to include green pedestrian-only space and create safer interactions between bikes and cars.

The plan takes aim at what organizers and many residents say is a hazardous intersection in need of modern organization — a complaint going back several years and central to a 2012 plan suggesting improvements to what it called a “lane puzzle.”

“The RFQ is important because our role has been to show the potential of the site. So what we tried to do is show CDOT and the public officials that there is a need to do this,” said project organizer Charlie Keel. “We took it a step further and showed how amazing it could be.”

Residents want a “lots of people places and public spaces” that interact safely with cars along the busy rotary-style street.

IDOT said the RFQ will help identify potential contractors with the "experience, expertise and resources" to do the work.

The plan has received the support of several local politicians, including Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd) and Cook County Commissioner Edwin Reyes, who arranged for $275,000 for the Bicentennial Improvement Project.

“In the end the thing that we can get out of [the RFQ] is that CDOT really respects what we proposed. This is really what the community is asking for,” Keel said. “[CDOT will] vet it and hopefully decide on something equally as amazing or exactly like what we proposed.”